“Atlantean, why are you so concerned about the conversion thing and
ignoring the good aspects of the missionary work? ”

I NEVER ignored the good aspects of missionary work. I have mentioned Mother Teresa. I have lots of interest in, profound gratitude and respect for Christianity and Christian missionaries for all the good things they have brought. The Bible is a special book for me. I took Bible courses during my school days. I have great appreciation for it.

I am concerned about conversion because it is blatantly against the law of the land, just like I’m concerned about other illegal activity like corruption, terrorism etc. I’ve already put my case about conversion earlier. Please dont poke me repeatedly with “why are you so concerned” questions when I’ve already answered them before in clear terms.

“most people these days reject this caste system because they have moved away from religion… ”

Sorry, people are not moving away from religion but are moving towards religion. Maybe you base your arguments based on the “the number of devout Hindus is dwindling” conjecture. The fact is the number of devout Hindus is increasing as is evident from the large scale Hindu revivalist movement going among Hindus today within India and outside. The caste system is being rejected not because they have moved away from religion but because of higher social awareness.

“its not the hindu reformist movements but its the rationality brought about my western education that made the change.”"

If you studied some history at school, you’d know that the British actually refused to introduce “western education” in India. It was the Hindu Reform Movement that put immense pressure on the British to introduce “western education.” So, the credit goes to the Hindu Reform Movement for taking the initiative. Your “western educated” British never wanted to change the caste system. In fact, they tried to divide it further by propagating false, irrational and unscientific hypotheses like the Aryan Invasion “Theory”. They also limited “western education” to the higher castes (Brahmins) which ended up deepening the caste system.

“Western culture has been far superior to any of the islamic countires or
india.” AND “BTW you haven’t answered my western education question.”

Pity! Though the British colonisers have left, I see the colonial mentality is still alive and well. Such thinking or superiority complex is not worthy of a reply. It puts your shallow intellect on display but as a fellow human being and out of pity and love, I suggest you get hold of an NCERT Class XI history text book and have a read. Your mind needs much enlightenment.

To start with, northern India had advanced cities, mathematics and science, a monetary system, a buoyant economy as far back as 3000 BC during the Indus Valley Civilisation. Remember, during this period, people in the West were still grappling in their caves.

India had its own Golden Age. India had peaked in all fields - science, mathematics, arts, philosophy, literature, religion - far before the Age of Enlightenment and Renaissance in the West. I quote a few lines from an entry in Wikipedia. This wasnt written by any Hindutvawadi. This is a neutral source:

The most significant achievements of this period, however, were in religion, education, mathematics, art, Sanskrit literature and drama, and Kama Sutra, the art of sex. Hinduism witnessed a crystallization of its components: major sectarian deities, image worship, devotionalism, and the importance of the temple. Education included grammar, composition, logic, metaphysics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. These subjects became highly specialized and reached an advanced level. The Indian numeral system—sometimes erroneously attributed to the Arabs, who took it from India to Europe where it replaced the Roman system—and the decimal system are Indian inventions of this period. Aryabhatta’s expositions on astronomy in 499, moreover, gave calculations of the solar year and the shape and movement of astral bodies with remarkable accuracy.

The Gupta golden age period contributed much to the world. Two of India’s earliest mathematicians, Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, also appeared during this period. Their intellectual advances helped to shape many future breakthroughs in technology. The brilliant minds behind the Gupta Empire made major advances in Algebra and also devised the concept of zero and infinity. One of their most important gifts to the world were symbols of the numbers from 1 to 9. These numerals were later adopted by the Arabs through trade and became known as the arabic numerals. And these were eventually adopted by the west.”

About Islamic culture, I cannot comment much because I’m not conversant with it. Maybe our friend here, Shaarique, can answer you better. I’ll tell you whatever I know. After the birth of Islam, a rapid advancement in education and science took place in the Arab world in what is called as the Islamic Golden Age. Arab scholars made enormous contributions to the Arts, Sciences and Philisophy. They were also great explorers. Some of them travelled as far as Scandinavia. All this while the West was trying to come to terms with rationality and science. An example is the way Nicholas Copernicus was treated by his coreligionists when he dared to think rationally and formulated his Heliocentric Theory.

Mind you Bob, I’m not saying all this to display any “superiority” about my culture but your sense of superiority wrong. I shall never claim my culture is superior because of the subjective nature of the term. Your attitude “my western culture is far superior” is arrogant, uneducated, puerile and not compatible with a modern, secular world where multiculturalism and not “cultural superiority” is the word of the day.

Get down off your high horse before you fall and break your bones. There’s no such thing as “superiority of culture.”

You base your views on the activities of a few organisations and draw the wrong conclusions. It is like giving the example of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and concluding that all Americans are racists and terrorists. Most Hindus dont support the VHP, the RSS and the BJP. The election results in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the state assembly elections in most of the states and even municipal elections, is evidence for that. Stop making unsubstantiated claims.

Btw, I’m NOT a Hindu nationalist.

BTW you haven’t answered my western education question.

And regarding the discussion going on here i have few things to add. Western culture has been far superior to any of the islamic countires or india. I say this because look at the organizations representing hindus in india, vhp and rss. they spilt venom agaisnt the minority, people like our previous home minister led a rath yatra that led to riots, chief minister of a state is fanatically against minorities and just see the kind of acts committed during riots my hindu zealots. (they have raped women, burned houses with people in it even an ex-mp was not spared, burned cars with family members in it, tear open the womb of a pregnant woman and what not). so if india were to be a hindu nation then i am damn sure these fanatics would have ruined this country in no time. minorities would have been subjected to atrocities beyond imagination.

I say all these based on the fact that vhp and rss are representors of hindus and majority of hindus patronize these organizations, which is certainly not the case with christens or even muslims.

I now ask people who championing the cause of hindu nation, what do you have to say regarding my above points? sachacht especially

I have been to SA so many times. I have myself faced many harrasments which i would not like to mention here. i ve been harrased in India too. But at the same time, I have seen the beauty of Islam in the holy land. I have also experienced the caring attitude of my fellow indians.

But to justify violence or to make conclusions like Schacht is beyond rationale. According to your line of thought, Schacht is biased due to hate for muslims and Islam while I might be biased due to love for Islam.

May Allah guide us in the right path. Let ramzan be a month when we strengthen our bond between ourselves.

with salaams.

Just to give an example of how i felt recently about a certain instance. For some of the people, Even the government’s Polio Vaccine Immunization scheme is looked at as a Fertility Impairing Scheme.

This is pure superstition and ignorance and you will find something similar in every religion and every community. We need to deal with it in the same way. Educate people about the benefits. Beat the conspiracy theories and so on.

…the Varanasi temple bombings, Mumbai train bombings and now the Malegon bombings.
…The Independence Day, Ganesh Pooja anniversaries were so full of precautions and never before seen vigilance. Is this even a free country anymore where people can lead their lives without fear of death ?. There has been a common denominator in all these events

Believe me I am as pained you are on these incidents and our friends Shaarique, Adnan and others share the same pain. But it will be wrong to think of our Muslim brethrens to be on the terrorists side. You talk of a common denominator in varansi, mumbai and malegaon blasts? May I ask you what it is? Especially when you are clubbing Mumbai and Malegaon blasts together!

Please don’t compare apples against oranges. some of them protested and accepted the apologies offered and the removal of offending articles from the market. A drop of blood let out in the process ?.

These are not apples and oranges. I made this analogy noting the complaints that Why do the muslims prtest this and not that and the reason I was trying to give was the same as Why hindus prtest this and not that. As for as a single drop of blood not let out, the difference is in the degree of the protest not in spirit. Don’t take this as me condoning violence in any form. No but more on that later…

Let me come to the muslim majority countries that you have talked about in your posts. You have tried to compare the state of religious minorties in India to the state of religious minorties in thos countries. You forget one important aspect though… India is a secular democratic country and those countries are theocratic(Now that is apple vs orange). There is a big difference in being a muslim majority country and a muslim theocratic country. By chosing Islamic theocracy these countries have chosen to be governed by the laws of Islam. If the law of the land is the same as the law of the religion how do you expect them to differentiate in the same way as you and I, living in a secular democracy, can? If you are advocating that those countries should adopt secular democratic form of government then I am with you. I am all for it. But if you are blaming all muslims for not voicing concern over this I cannot agree with you. The Muslims living elsewhere in the world need not protest it. If they do it is a good thing but if they don’t I will fall back on my human nature reasoning from my previous post.

That the common anti-muslim feeling in India is gaining ground, is a fact. But what is worse is that it is gaining ground because some perverts like Osama Bin Laden and his likes are justifying their acts in the name of Islam. They have an agenda of getting every muslim on their side and every non muslims on the other side. What better tool to use than religion? Don’t we all know that religion is one thing, in the name of which people can do anything? This is why it becomes imperative for rational thinking non muslims like you and me to intervene and stop this feeling of anti muslim from gaining ground.

Now, if the objective of your questions and comments was to highlight the need of reforms im Muslim countries, I agree with you. I agree because I favour democracy over theocracy.
If you are suggesting that muslim societies need reforms in some of their social issues, I agree. Like with every society they have the needs to reform. Hindu society has had its share of reforms in the past. It still needs reform to get rid of the evil caste system. Similarly Muslim society needs reform. Believe me there are Muslims working towards it and I have tried to highlight that in my post here at http://politeindian.wordpress.com/2006/09/22/islam-and-the-non-muslims/

But if your objective was to blame Islam for all that, I cannot agree with you because at the base of it religion is pure but then there are people who use/misuse/misinterpret it for their own benefits. We need to be beware of that and support those who are trying to bring a change (nothing sort of a revolution). Don’t put the Muslims on the defensive because of the acts of some perverts like OBL. I will quote it here from my post As long as they are on the defensive, they can not be on the offensive (i.e. against terrorism)

I suppose you missed this part of my previous post wherein I have emphasised that Allah will each person differently according to his faith, upbringing, culture etc.

I am very sorry to say that the number of devout hindus believing in God is reducing drastically day by day. This is something very unfortunate. Even the leaders of hindu fanatics like Tagodia have little faith in God. “Even if Ram himself where to tell me that he was not born in Ayodhya I would not buldge”.

As the faith of the hindus is being lost and is getting highly corrupt due to lack of God consciousness, Islam is the only religion that can rescue their followers. After all prophet Muhammad (saws) is a mercy to all mankind.

Allah knows best.